FP’s Terence Corcoran: How to create ­science consensus

Right in the opening chapter of Harvey Levenstein’s entertaining and eye-opening book, Fear of Food: A History of Why We Worry About What We Eat, the absurdities of official health policy based on grossly misguided claims of cause and effect are horrifyingly on display. In 1912, tests of cats’ whiskers and fur in Chicago revealed the presence of large numbers of bacteria. In response, the Chicago Board of Health declared cats to be “extremely dangerous to humanity.” In Topeka, Kan., the health board ordered all cats be “sheared or killed.” After a child polio outbreak in New York City in 1916, cats were blamed and, over a three-week period in July that year, more than 80,000 pets were sent to the SPCA to be gassed. About 10% were dogs.

Even more spectacular was the early 19th-century war on the common house fly. An eminent scientist, Walter Reed, reported that house flies could carry typhoid fever to food. That possibility only occurred when flies were practically immersed in human excrement, but such details were glossed over and the belief grew that flies carried typhoid to humans. Soon, however, public health activists blamed flies for spreading tuberculosis and other diseases. Health officials and the media — which plays a key role in spreading fear and bad policy throughout Mr. Levenstein’s book — expanded the risks. A 1905 New York Times editorial, backing “warfare against the fly,” said flies were infesting homes and food supplies bearing “not only the germs of typhoid and cholera, but of tuberculosis, anthrax, diphtheria, opthalmia, smallpox, staphylococcus infection, swine fever, tropical sores and the eggs of parasitic worms.” Read more

In the wake of a Grammy Awards ceremony that disappointed many, from Kanye West to the masses on Twitter lamenting the state of pop music, a historical perspective is key. Few are better poised to offer one than Andy Kim.